As a marketer, SEO can seem overwhelming, but you know it’s critical for your content marketing. A lot of changes are taking place in that industry, and it can be challenging to stay up to date.

Lucky for us, we have Rand Fishkin and his popular Whiteboard Friday on Moz. If you aren’t familiar with the Whiteboard Friday series, I highly suggest you check out these gems. Not only will you learn a lot, but these are a fantastic example of how consistent, exceptional content can build an audience.

Regardless of whether you are new to this series or a regular, here are my favorite Whiteboard Friday moments for content marketers.

How can I create content that will rise above the noise?

We can’t just say, ‘Hey, I want to be as good as the top 10 people in the search results for this particular keyword term or phrase.’ We have to say, ‘How can I create something 10 times better than what any of these folks are currently doing?’ That’s how we stand out.

Luckily, Rand offers many solid ideas in How to Create 10x Content. He first explains the criteria for 10x content — and how it should make the reader feel — then offers four steps to create it.

What should you do when the wrong page ranks for a keyword?

This is a challenge we have faced at CMI, and apparently it’s something that is crazy common.

It goes a bit like this: You are thrilled that your site comes up in search results … but the page isn’t ideal (let’s just say it doesn’t put your best foot forward or it isn’t as relevant for that search as you would like it to be).

This Whiteboard Friday is an essential read for anyone working on your blog or website. As Rand explains, not only are you trying to get the page to rank, but you are also trying to get the user to stay once they are there to signal it as high-quality content. He reviews essentials such as:

The classic mode of thinking is to create a list of keywords and then create pages to address them. However, the issue is that similar words (think: content curation vs. content curator) would need the same information, so some people create different pages for each keyword even though the intent is the same.

A newer approach is to focus on broader concepts and topics instead of the keywords. You see this all the time with the proliferation of ultimate guides that set out to answer all of the questions you may have on a topic. While there may not appear to be a downside to this — and this super-awesome piece of content may be widely shared — chances are that it won’t rank well because it covers so many topics.

What is a marketer to do?

Rand suggests a hybrid approach that uses a combination of keywords and topics.

Author: Michele Linn

Michele Linn is the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Mantis Research, a consultancy focused on helping brands create and amplify original research they can use in their marketing. Before starting Mantis, Michele was head of editorial at Content Marketing Institute, where she led the company's strategic editorial direction, co-developed its annual research studies, wrote hundreds of articles, spoke at industry events and was instrumental in building the platform to 200,000 subscribers. In 2015, she was named one of Folio's Top Women in Media (Corporate Visionary). You can follow her on Twitter at @michelelinn.

Those white boards have many words, lines and arrows. However, those white board screenshots seem to be little more than noise. No prudent C-level exec ever would approve of any initiative built from claims from the above.

Is not the content of content marketing a video, a whitepaper, a PDF brochure and so forth? Is not content marketing efforts to get would-be customers to click on links to watch a video, read a whitepaper or look at a PDF brochure and so forth?

Neither Rand Fishkin nor Michele Linn touched on how to write advertising copy that gets anyone to desire the content so strongly that such one acts right now by clicking on a link. Is not that what content marketing is all about?

rogercparker

Dear Michele:
Thanks for sharing the essential building blocks of a core SEO strategy that we can adapt for numerous uses, , i.e. introduction, staff/client review, or isolating specific ideas to develop, interpret, and share with our market. A great resource for all.
Roger

heidicohen

Good examination of Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Fridays. They should be on every marketer’s reading list.

I think they’re a great example of what I call recurring content columns.

According to Rand Fishkin, it takes prospects about 7-8 touches on their website to get a trial.

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

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